The Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) investigated the evolution of government policy pertaining to Indigenous nations in Canada. Regarding Indigenous child welfare, RCAP found that as the federal government phased out residential schools, it began expanding its role in funding social welfare services. Experts argued that the child welfare system was based on colonial policies with the goal of assimilating Indigenous children and was an extension of the residential school system. The federal government's willingness to fund child-in-care costs, along with the resistance to fund preventative services, were major factors in the permanent removal of Indigenous children. RCAP recommended that the federal government acknowledge a fiduciary responsibility to support Indigenous nations and communities in restoring Indigenous families to a "state of health and wholeness" and to focus funding on family supports as opposed to child-in-care costs.